As the Labour Party recoils from the shock resignation of Jacinda, candidates and questions have immediately arisen.
Here’s our take at TDB.
Michael Wood: He is the most Prime Ministerial of the lot. He is a AND HAS BEEN a constant voice inside Cabinet for better deals to working people, the most vulnerable and the poor. He is totally on the side of angels and NZ would be lucky to have a Leader of his ethical certitude. His ‘Rivers of Filth’ comment was inflammatory at the time of the Dumb Lives Matter protest on Parliaments Lawns, but has ultimately been proven right when you consider the mouth foaming fuckwittery and malice we’ve seen spewed at the Prime Minister over the last 48 hours. He is a talent, he is a moral backbone in Labour and it would be foolish to not give him a considerable promotion. He won’t be the Leader, because Chippy needs to be the Leader, but he needs to be part of any new front bench in terms of seniority and talent. Labour split Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy of the Labour Party for Kelvin to share with Grant, maybe Deputy Leader of Labour Party is what Michael should be offered to give him the mana his leadership deserves in a new Government.
Misogyny: Aloha Luxon originally thought online misogyny wasn’t worse for women in his RNZ interview and then by afternoon after being shouted at by Nicola Willis and every other female member of his Party, Aloha Luxon made a press statement in the afternoon acknowledging that gender abuse online was worse as he’d been subjected to an enormous amount of it since his RNZ interview.
New Zealanders are such a pack of whinging arsehole infants who have gone bitterly Post Covid feral with their abuse SO MUCH SO that we burned out Jacinda’s kindness chip!
Who is such an arsehole that it could empty the tank of compassion that someone like Jacinda had?
Us!
We are such a vicious pack of arseholes that we broke our Prime Minister!
The exhaustion increasingly etched on her face from dealing with the most challenging times outside war plus the toxic vilification of her has worn her down as we ride rudderless as a political movement on an ocean of anxiety.
We were lucky to have her, she brought out NZs best & sadly our worst.
The radioactive bile that has been vomited up on her has been a shameful low in public debate.
There were many legitimate reasons to disagree with the Prime Minister, this blog did so on many occasions, but there is a difference between reasonable difference and that hate speech she and her family have been buried under.
There is an enormous distance between being critical and abusive. The easily triggered woke have lowered that threshold to such ridiculously subjective levels the outrage olympics that follow seem embarrassingly trite while at the other end of the spectrum, the feral antivaxxer Qanon race baiting redneck confederacy that endlessly threatens violence and sexual assault are as common as hashtags.
We burnt out a good person as our Leader and part of the was the feral manner in which debate via social media has deformed into a battlefield of spiteful threats and abuse.
Kiri Allan: Such a talent and such an incredibly authentic person. She is intelligent, personable and has genuine charisma. Appointing her Deputy Prime Minister would give her a platform to push for staunch Labour values. She would be an asset but would need strong support in the job. The Labour Māori Caucus hopes and aspirations should be placed in Kiri’s hands and she in turn needs them for advice.
Snap Election: There has been some debate that the Labour Party should have just called a snap election following Jacinda’s resignation to which I call bullshit! If Jacinda had resigned and called a snap election, it would have plunged NZ into a needless panic on the markets and on the economy and on the population itself. You don’t just resign and plunge the country into a snap election, that’s a recipe for panic!
What the hell do you all think would have happened on our markets overnight if they had heard our popular PM was quitting and immediately calling for a snap election?
People who voted Labour in 2020 deserve to see their Government they elected see out its full term! Why the fuck should we on tyke Left agree to a. snap election that National didn’t even consider when Key stood down?
The election in October is the best outcome for our democracy, not some crazed panic snap election because Rachel Smalley thinks we should!
Nanaia Mahuta: While she has the political muscle and support to get Deputy, I think she knows that her character has been so besmirched by the Right painting her out as secretly stealing water for Māori that running for it would hurt Labour at the Polls more than help them. She has done an enormous amount of work and similar to Jacinda has been demonised, her focus needs to be on Foreign Affairs at a time of huge geopolitical shockwaves.
Stuart Nash: The Nashy has made noises about the top job which is sweet of him, if the Nashy wants to help Labour he should pop back on ZB and fight our cause there rather than let poor Megan Woods get beaten up each week by Mike Hosking.
Kelvin Davis: Currently holds deputy Leader of the Labour Party, this should be handed to Michael Wood.
Grant Robertson: Currently Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Deputy PM should be given to Kiri. He knows how hard the recession will be, he is holding the Finance Minister reigns and that ensures he can’t be held accountable for Covid decisions because by ruling out running as Leader he ensures a political career past the election. Has to stay on because Treasury would freak out if there was any hint of a Bernie Sanders/Jeremy Corbyn left wing populist breaking out.
Carmel Sepuloni: Has been one of the biggest disappointments in Labour. Totally compromised in Welfare by not rolling out the Welfare recommendations and her terrible decision to remove the Children’s Commissioner from Oranga Tamariki oversight makes her a dreadful candidate.
Conclusion:
It will be Chippie as PM, should be Kiri as Deputy PM, Grant as Finance Minister and Michael Wood as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Nanaia as Foreign Affairs and Kelvin on poetry.
Chippie is to the right of the Party and will need to throw the Left a sop for their loyalty so expect Free Dental, or Free Public transport or Free lunches in Schools as an early pledge.
The way the Right used hate to spread their speech and burnt Jacinda out will become an influence in how swing voters react and the economic recession will quickly become a crisis.
ACT and National argue we must slash the State to cope with this economic recession while Labour and the Greens must argue to increase capacity of the State to cope with the recession and fund that capacity increase with wealth taxes on the speculators, the banks and the rich.
If the new Labour Leadership can articulate this alongside a 100 days urgency once elected, they have a chance of winning.
UPDTE: Kiri has ruled herself out, the push is now for Carmel as Deputy. A terrible decision.
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The only choice from that lot is Chris…at least I do not turn off the TV if I see him on the screen, unlike the rest!
Asked myself Who or what is Rachle Smalley?Never heard of her till I looked it up.Is she Hoskin’s new wife?
” Chippie is to the right of the Party ”
That sums it up nicely.
That T word we heard so much about and he campaigned on will be quietly dropped. He does not want to inflate the expectations of the underclass he claims to represent by continuing with his preferred option of unregulated capitalism because the evidence shows how well its working…….for people like him.
” Treasury would freak out if there was any hint of a Bernie Sanders/Jeremy Corbyn left wing populist breaking out ”
I think the chances of that happening are dead in the water alongside the party Labour used to be and the people who looked to them for protection against the Nast Natz and the evils of capitalism.
Now the Labour leader is just the same enemy they used to stand against.
PM Chippie, ey? I like him. He’ll do a good job I believe.
Following Ardern’s announcement, Seymour’s and Luxon’s immediate comments to the press were a damning indictment on themselves and on NZers who support this ‘ normalizing’ of abuse and violence at an unprecedented level.
Ardern faced the most serious of overt threats, unprecedented, including being hung publicly, killed and multiple threats of that ultimate weapon of war, to be raped.
It’s two sick narcissists, wannabe leaders of NACT who would then make comments to the press that justified such violence in society , ‘ Ardern could not face reality’ and ‘ I face the same but I can handle it’.
Post her resignation it still continues, even the conversations around the office, the neighbourhood are still ugly and vile justifications. The comments really reflect more on the speakers of these utterances as the ones needing urgent mental health support for very abnormal aggression.
In the upcoming election reflect more on the hidden values behind the public face and rhetoric presented of wannabe PMs. What Seymour and Luxon highlight is that over half the NZ population, women, are still thought of as inferior humans deserving of abuse and violence; of a magnitude too that strongly infers that women are unfit for leadership and are to be coerced back to subjugation to the kitchen.
Should TBD let comments fly like,
” You know like any other working woman had a husband that looked after the kids, large salary and entourage of helpers!”
Superficially , these types of comments appear as ‘throw away’, innocuous but still deal psychological blows to knock women around and perpetuate further harm.
Does it really matter who runs the Labour caucus?
For a start Caucus will be united in protecting their jobs when they lose the election in October, not overruling its timid rule on behalf of international finance capital up to this point.
As Bernard Hickey says there is no economic reason for not using the absolute majority in parliament to junk the economic neo-liberal straight jacket and power up the state to do what the market will never do.
Except he overlooks that Caucus would be scared shitless by such a left turn bringing about a US regime change intervention.
The only historic role for Labourism now is to liquidate itself by making way for a militant, democratic workers’ party.
The big issues that workers have to unite on are class, race and gender.
If the ranks of the labour movement could elect a Labour leader who stands for the future and not the past, someone who embodies the historic struggle of workers, women and colonised people, Labour would be making a generous parting gift to working people.
That person is Kiri Allen a gay Maaori woman who will not shy away from a fight even if she cannot win it.
Such an affront to the ruling gentry would escalate the cultural ‘divisions’ not on the basis of personality but on the basis of class interests.
These class contradictions go deep historically and cannot be resolved in parliament which is fundamentally the guardian of private property.
Already the NACT comprador ruling class has declared it’s intention to defend rip, shit and bust capitalism against all comers to extinction.
Labour’s self-immolation would release workers from the dead hand of the capitalist bureaucracy and open the road to a future workers socialist government that is our only hope against human extinction.
“Kelvin on poetry” hahaha!
Land tax now. Rent controls now. Time for action.
I’m kinda warming up to the idea of the ‘Ginga with a Machete ‘ vibe, persona for Hipkins.
If he goes for it and quickly, bludgeons some bad legislation and policies immediately and calls for a snap election ASAP. He could score a draw and possibly a win. #Blitzkrieg2023
Hipkins is an archetypal clone of Roger Douglas type quisling. Goff or Hipkins? Hipkins or Goff? one of these things is just like the other.
He’s no friend of the left.
Chippy’s the fall guy. Labour is toast unless they pull something huge out of their hat. Something’s up, dunno what, but there just seems something fishy afoot. I don’t buy JA’s “not enough in the tank”. Two PMs in a row with same lame excuse? Right as we hit recession. Will someone with any mana on the left please stand up to lead NZ through the shitty year we’re going to go through? Chloé? Anyone?
Well sinic you would say that. Shall we call you conspiracy theorist at large. If you think Jacinda Ardern made up her speech then I feel sorry for you. Who in their right mind would put up with the vile abuse ad nauseam, what mother would allow her child to be threatened , what fiancé could go through the day battling constant evil lying rumors. The truth is she did this for the sake of NZ with a sadistic nasty underbelly with the support of the nasty nats lying media she didn’t deserve this treatment . The real truth is we the public have no real idea what she actually had to put up and deal with. The NACT has a lot to answer for allowing their supporters to act as attack dogs without any rebuke or support for all women in parliament. David Seymour goes crying to his mother if anyone says anything to hurt his feelings , Christopher Luxon denied and pleaded ignorance of such happenings agains the PM . You watch the difference in the next few weeks with a man at the helm , mark my words there will be no misogynistic questions such as from Mark Richardson asking him when is he going to have a baby !!
Queeny, conspiracy theorist, really, that’s the best you’ve got, lol. Take your woke crap and go scold your husband/wife/kids/whatever with it. Time will tell what’s going on internally with Labour and it ain’t all smiles and feel feels.
We know which boxes the leader ticks.
What boxes does the deputy need to tick?
Are Labour that simple?